The Land of Frozen Suns Part 8

"I don't-altogether," Barreau cut in again. "But you took advantage of my mischance, to help along a little scheme that you've been nursing some time. I had a glimpse of your hand in MacLeod. You have done the mischief. Why should I trouble myself further in your affairs, unless it be to call you to account for the dirty trick you have played?"

"Oho, I see now," Montell nodded understandingly. "I didn't catch what you were driving at. But you're wrong, dead wrong, George. Why, I tried every way to send Jessie back from Benton. Yes, sir, tried every way.

You've no idea how wilful that girl is." He spread his fat hands deprecatingly. "She'd come to MacLeod, spite of h.e.l.l 'n' high water. _I_ couldn't stop her. And with every Tom, d.i.c.k 'n' Harry talkin' about you, and them dodgers stuck up every place, and you really in the guardhouse-why, you see how it was. No way to keep it dark. But it's not as bad as you think. Of course she's kinda excited-but, pshaw! When you see her again she won't think of it. You're dead wrong, George, when you blame me. Yes, sir. Wouldn't I have kept it quiet if I could? You know it, George. I got somethin' at stake, too."

"You have that," Barreau returned grimly, "and you had better keep that fact in mind. But don't ask me to believe such rot as your not being able to prevent her from making such a radical change of plan. However, the milk is spilt; the crying part will come later. I'll keep to my part of the bargain. Does everything stand as originally laid out?"

Montell nodded. "There's no call to change," he said, and again the purring, satisfied note crept into his voice.

"I want another good horse, a saddle, a pack layout, and grub for a month," Barreau enumerated. "Rout Steve up-you know where he sleeps-and have him get those things. We need guns, too. Where is my box?"

"It's on the tail end of the first wagon outside. Steve's sleepin' just beyond. Couldn't you just as well wake him, George?"

"No, I've other things to do," Barreau refused bluntly. "Bestir your fat carca.s.s, and set him to work. The night air won't hurt you. We have no time to waste. For all I know a troop of Police may be on us before we can get started again."

Montell grunted some unintelligible protest, but nevertheless, heaved his flesh-burdened body up from the cot. He gathered about him a much-worn dressing gown, and, thrusting his feet into a pair of slippers, left the tent.

"Now, let us see about clothes," Barreau said to me, and I followed him to the wagon-end.

He climbed up on the hind wheel. After a second or two of fumbling he upended a flat steamer trunk. I held it while he leaped to the ground, and between us we carried it into the tent.

"The Police have my key-much good may it do them," he remarked, and pried open the lid with a hatchet that lay near by. He threw a few articles carelessly aside.

"Peel off those roustabout garments," he said to me. "Here is something better. Lucky we're about of a size."

He gave me a blue flannel shirt to begin with, and when I had discarded the soiled rags I wore and put on the clean one, he held out to me a coat and trousers of some dark cloth, a pair of riding boots similar to those on his own feet, and clean socks. Other clothing he hauled from the trunk and laid in a pile by itself. Lastly he brought forth a new felt hat.

"Does this fit you?" He stood up and set it on my head. "Fine. No, I'll get a hat from Steve before we start," he silenced my protest. We had both ridden bareheaded.

Montell returned while I was getting into the welcome change of apparel.

"Steve's gettin' you what you need, George," he informed. "There's a new tarpaulin by the bed you can use for your pack. Steve'll get you blankets. Go softly. I'm none too sure of all these bull-whackers I got."

Barreau went on spreading his clothes in a flat heap as if he had not heard. Presently he closed the trunk. Getting to his feet he glanced about.

"Oh, yes," he said curtly, as if he had but recollected something. "I want some of that port you've been guzzling. Dig it up."

"Certainly, George, certainly," Montell's face broadened in an ingratiating smile, though Barreau's tone was as contemptuously insulting as it could well be. He reached under the box upon which the candle stood and brought out a bottle. Barreau took it, held it up to the light, then laid it by his clothing without a word; Montell watching him with a speculative air, meanwhile.

"That's fine stuff, George," he said tentatively. "Fine stuff. I ain't got but a little."

"d.a.m.n you, don't talk to me!" Barreau whirled on him. "I'm sick of the whole business, and I want none of your smooth palaver, nor whining about what I do."

The older man's florid face took on a deeper tint. One of his fat hands suddenly drew into a fist. Barreau had penetrated his hide, in some way that I could not quite understand. And I imagine there would have been some sort of explosion on the spot, but for the timely diversion of a man's head parting the door-flaps.

"Them hosses is ready," he briefly announced. And Barreau turned his back on Mr. Montell forthwith. I did likewise.

For all I did I might as well have stayed in the tent. Barreau and Steve went silently about saddling one horse and lashing a pack-tree on another. In the dull light from the tent I could barely make shift to see, but they seemed to know every strap and tying-place, and the thing was quickly done. Last of all, they folded Barreau's clothing and two or three pairs of heavy blankets in the tarpaulin, and bound the roll on top of the food-supply. Then Barreau stepped once more within the tent.

What he said to Montell did not reach my ears. At any rate, it was brief. Watching his shadow on the canvas wall I saw him turn to come out, saw him stop and bend over something near the flaps. He straightened up with a sharp exclamation, and this time I heard distinctly what he said.

"By the Lord, you have been fool enough to let her come farther even!

Oh, you miserable--" His words ran into a blur of sound.

Montell raised in his cot again. I could see the bulk of him outlined against the farther side.

"Now, see here, George," he burst out irritably. "This is goin' too far.

Between you and Jessie I've had a heap of trouble this trip. And my patience has got limits. Yes, sir. It's got limits! I'm doin' the best I can, and you got to do the same. You go to backin' old man Montell into a corner, and the fur'll fly. You act like you was a schoolboy, and I'd took your cap away."

I don't think that Barreau made any reply to this. If he did the words were softly spoken, and he was not the man to speak softly, considering the mood he was in just then. He was out of the tent almost before Montell had finished.

"Steve," he said, in a matter-of-fact way as he laid hold of his stirrup (I was already mounted), "let me have your hat. I lost mine in the shuffle."

Without comment Steve took the hat from his head and handed it up to him. "So-long," he grunted laconically.

"So-long, Steve," said Barreau.

The candle in Montell's tent blinked out with the words. Barreau caught up the lead-rope of our pack-pony, and then, as silently as we had come, we rode away.

CHAPTER X-"THERE'S MONEY IN IT"

A brisk wind sprang up ere we were well clear of the Montell camp. In half an hour it was blowing a gale. Overhead the clouds ripped apart in the lash of the wind, and a belated moon peered tentatively through the torn places. It lighted the way, so that we could see sudden dips in the prairie, buffalo-wallows and such abrupt depressions, before we reached them. With the lifting of the solid black that had walled us in Barreau set a faster pace.

"It will soon be day," he broke a long silence, "and though I am loth to overtax our mounts, we must reach the Blood Flats. If we are being followed, they will scarcely think to look for us there. And I know of no other place in this bald country where our picketed horses would not stand out like the nose on a man's face. How it blows!"

It did. So that speech was next to impossible, even had we been inclined to talk. The wind struck us quartering and m.u.f.fled a shout to inconsequent syllables. But beyond those few words Barreau kept mute, leaning forward in his stirrups at a steady lope. We must have covered near twenty miles before the eastern skyline gave a hint of dawn. With that Barreau pulled his horse down to a walk.

"Well," he said lightly, "we made it easily enough. Now for a bit of a climb. It will be awkward if a bunch of unfriendly Stonies have taken possession of the one spot that will serve us. But that's hardly thinkable. Are you tired, Bob?"

I was, and freely owned it. He swung sharply aside while I was speaking, and in a few minutes an odd-shaped b.u.t.te loomed ahead. It upreared out of the flat country like a huge wart. The bald slope of it lay weather-worn, rain-scarred, naked of vegetation, but on its crest tangled patches of cherry brush and sally-willows made a ragged silhouette against the sky. The east blazed like the forefront of a prairie fire when we reached the top. Then it became plain to me why Barreau had sought the place. The scrub growth stood dense as a giant's beard, but here and there enfolding little meadows of bunchgra.s.s, and winding in and out through these Barreau finally drew up by a rush-fringed pool that proved to be a spring.

"Water, wood, and gra.s.s," said he as his heels struck the earth, "and all securely screened from pa.s.sers-by. Now we can eat and rest in peace.

Let us get a fire built and boil a pot of coffee before it gets so light that the smoke will betray us."

The horses we picketed in one of the little glades. Shut in by the brush, they could graze unseen. Then we cooked and ate breakfast, hurrying to blot out the fire, for dawn came winging swiftly across the plains.

"Come over and take a look from the brow of the hill," Barreau proposed, when we were done.

Wearily I followed him. I could have stretched myself in the soft gra.s.s and slept with a will; every bone and muscle in my body protested against further movement, and I was sluggish with a full stomach. But Barreau showed no sign of fatigue, and a measure of pride in my powers of endurance kept me from open complaint.

It was worth a pang or two, after all. He led the way to the southern tip of the plateau; no great distance-from edge to edge the tableland was no more than three hundred yards across. But it overlooked the Blood Flats from a great height, four hundred feet or more, I judged. Barreau sat down beside a choke-cherry clump, and rolled himself a cigarette.

Ten paces beyond, the b.u.t.te fell away sheer to the waste levels below.

"There is nothing that I have ever seen just like this," he murmured.

"And it is never twice alike. Watch that rise take fire from the sun.

And the mountains over yonder; square-shouldered giants, tricked out in royal purple."